


Missed

by valda



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asphyxiation, Force Choking, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Threats of Violence, evil characters being evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-02 22:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16795594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda
Summary: Hux has been acting differently toward Kylo since the First Order lost the Resistance on Crait, and Kylo can't handle it much longer.





	Missed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wishonadarkstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishonadarkstar/gifts).



> Your prompt gave me so many possibilities! I ended up narrowing it down to two "likes": communication failures and hurt/comfort. I hope you enjoy!

One of the most frustrating things about Hux is that Kylo can never fully possess him. There’s always a part of him that isn’t there, no matter if he’s fucking Kylo over the arm of the throne or they’re collapsed in a tangle in Kylo’s bed. It certainly isn’t there when they stand on the bridge together, overseeing Kylo’s empire. Hux’s face displays just as many emotions as Kylo knows his own does, but somehow, when Hux looks at Kylo, his eyes are dead.

His eyes are dead now, glancing in Kylo’s direction as he fastens his tunic. Kylo is dressed already, watching him. Hux turns back to the mirror and brushes down his uniform front, steps forward to the vanity table to see to his hair.

Even before Crait, before the throne room, Hux was distant. There were times when his voice approached something like gentleness, times when his touch was light and exploratory and might even have been considered loving...but none of that ever made it to his eyes. All Kylo ever saw in Hux’s eyes was his anger.

Now, he doesn’t even see that.

Hux finishes flattening his hair to his head and moves toward the hatchway leading out of Kylo’s chambers. Their shared chambers, now. He stands at attention, waiting for Kylo. When Kylo rises from where he’s been sitting on the bed and strides to the door, Hux falls into position on his flank. His emotionless expression is intolerable.

It’s easy for Kylo to make Hux angry. It always has been. But it’s almost not worth it anymore. Not when the response is this infuriating listlessness.

Perhaps Hux himself isn’t worth it anymore.

For a moment, Kylo considers grabbing a handful of Hux’s pomade-suffused hair, tearing Hux’s tunic open, wrestling him back to the bed. He’s done it before. But whenever he does, Hux goes without protest...and that’s not the reaction Kylo wants.

He leads Hux out of their quarters instead, heads to the new throne room. It overlooks the _Finalizer_ bridge, allowing him to observe his people at work as well as the area beyond the forward viewports. Kylo settles into his throne and Hux steps to the command console at Kylo’s right, from which he can direct his people without straying too far from Kylo’s sight.

Hux is always with Kylo, at Kylo’s command.

Kylo pages through reports on his datapad and watches Hux do the same. The fleet is currently tasked with resupply, which is much easier now that the Core Worlds are under First Order control. The room is almost completely silent, with only the soft buzz of electronics and the occasional sound of clothing shifting as Kylo adjusts his sitting position or Hux folds his arms in thought.

They never talked much, but now they don’t talk at all. Kylo gives commands, and Hux acknowledges them and sees that they are carried out. Hux presents reports and strategies, and Kylo accepts or rejects his recommendations. They fall on each other like animals when they are alone, in meeting rooms or storage closets or here in the throne room or back in their chambers. But they don’t talk.

The alert comes to both Kylo and Hux at once: there’s been a sighting of Rey. A woman matching her description was seen at a dive bar on a nothing planet in the far reaches of the Outer Rim. Hux turns to look at Kylo with something like resignation on his face. It’s barely distinguishable from his usual mien, but it’s enough.

“Problem, General?”

Hux draws in a long breath through his nose. “No, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo frowns. “Then you’ll begin planning our strike immediately.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Hux doesn’t like it. It’s the most emotion he’s displayed in weeks. Kylo watches Hux’s gloved fingers stab at his console, crosses his legs as he considers the tensing of Hux’s shoulders. But Hux says nothing more. Over the course of the next half hour, he works silently, drafting up a proposal for a strike team to infiltrate the planet and assassinate Rey.

“No,” Kylo says when he’s finished, reviewing it over his shoulder. “I’m going. And so are you.”

“Supreme Leader—” Hux begins. Then his mouth snaps shut.

“Speak your mind,” Kylo invites him in his most cloying, indulgent voice.

Hux’s lip twitches, minutely.

“It is inadvisable for the First Order’s leadership to appear personally. There’s no way to guarantee security. Your knights should be enough.”

“They won’t be,” Kylo says. “I’ve fought her. I know her strength.”

Hux’s entire body is as taut as a strung bow. Kylo thinks he wants to say something impertinent. _Wants_ him to say something impertinent.

“As you command, Supreme Leader,” Hux says crisply, and with a few taps he has added Kylo and himself to the mission.

~

Adarlon is indeed a nothing world, yet another desert planet inhabited by scrappers and scavengers and criminals. Years ago the planet suffered a famine thanks to the Republic’s inability to properly manage resources, and it has never quite recovered. The closest world of any consequence is Utapau, and it isn’t even that close.

Kylo can’t imagine what Rey is here for, but it hardly matters. He will find her, and if she refuses to join him once again, he will kill her.

Hux has been quiet, as is now usual, since he unhappily handed over command of the _Finalizer_ to Peavey. He’s spoken only briefly to his aide and personal assassin, Tritt Opan. Kylo is amused that Hux brought Opan, but he won’t begrudge the general his security blanket.

They’re waiting for the air strike to clear the way for the troop carriers. Kylo will raze this entire planet if he has to. Rey is near; he can feel it, though he can’t pinpoint where. And so his TIE fighters are raining down fire over the entirety of the main trading village, the only place on the entire planet with a spaceport. Once that’s done, his stormtroopers will land and begin their search, and then, finally, the command shuttle will land too, and Kylo will be free to seek his revenge.

He paces the cockpit of the Upsilon-class shuttle. It’s spacious compared to his TIE Silencer, but right now it feels too constricting. He wants to be on the ground. He wants to face Rey.

Hux is watching the consoles and the heads-up display intently. He probably isn’t looking forward to leaving the shuttle. But as always, his face is mostly blank, and when he glances up at Kylo the sharpness leaves his eyes.

Kylo wants to drop to his knees and yank down Hux’s jodhpurs, deep-throat his cock in front of everyone. But he’s not quite convinced Hux would even react. He lets out an irritated huff and spins away from Hux, stalking to the other side of the cockpit.

“We’re ready to land,” the pilot announces.

“Finally,” Kylo says. “Do it.”

To Hux’s certain dismay, Kylo orders Opan to stay on board the shuttle. Kylo isn’t interested in being attacked by his own men while he’s fighting rebels. Hux, though, Kylo keeps close by.

They step off the ramp and out into the harsh desert climate of Adarlon. Hux puts on his hat and turns the lapels of his greatcoat up against the sandy wind. Kylo shrugs off his cape, leaving it at the foot of the ramp; it will do him no good here.

The stormtroopers have cleared them a path to the center of the village. Kylo stalks through the empty streets, Hux practically tripping to keep up with him, past low clay buildings with few windows. The town square is more of a circle, with clusters of brown and tan merchants’ tents, water troughs for beasts of burden, benches, a pavilion probably used in village ceremonies. Corralled villagers cower on their knees in a mass in front of the pavilion, hands on their heads, targeted by dozens of stormtrooper blasters.

Kylo appropriates the pavilion as his base of operations. The blood is singing in his veins. Rey is here.

“Bring me one of them,” he commands, and two of the stormtroopers drag a villager up into the pavilion, depositing them at Kylo’s feet. Kylo crouches low, leans close. “Where’s the girl?”

“What–what girl?” the villager squeaks.

“The Jedi,” Kylo says, feeling his face twist with distaste.

“Jedi?” the villager repeats. They sound terrified, as well they should.

Kylo sighs, gives them a patient, almost indulgent smile, and extends his hand. “Well, if you insist.”

Mind probes are never _easy_ , but this one is simpler than most. The villager has seen Rey, but doesn’t know it; she made a purchase at their stall here in the square. Some sort of food. The villager didn’t see which way she went.

“Useless,” Kylo huffs, and waves his hand. The stormtroopers drag the screaming, shaking villager back to join the rest of the prisoners.

Hux, Kylo notices, is licking his lips. Kylo wonders what he’s thinking. His thirst for power has always been a near-palpable thing. Kylo wonders if this display has aroused him. But as soon as their eyes meet, Hux’s expression flattens again.

Kylo spins away from him. “Individual interrogations will take too long,” he says, striding down the pavilion steps to stand in front of the prisoners. “If you did not aid and abet the Jedi girl, you have nothing to fear from the First Order,” he calls out to them. “If you’ve seen her, if you help us capture her, the First Order will hold you and your planet in the highest regard.” He looks the crowd over, then selects a villager who appears to be frowning. “If you betray us, if you help the girl…” Kylo thrusts out his arm, drags the frowning villager off the ground by the throat with a Force chokehold. “We will not be forgiving.”

Kylo lets the villager struggle, face bloating and changing color, until they nearly pass out from lack of air. Then he lets them fall back to the sandy ground. They collapse in an unmoving heap.

Several villagers speak up then, as expected. Kylo orders the stormtrooper squad leaders to compile their information for him and returns to the pavilion.

Hux is staring at a point in the middle distance and won’t look at him. Kylo isn’t sure what he expected, but this is infuriating, as practically all of Hux’s behaviors have been the past several weeks. He stalks past Hux, shoulder-checks him on the way. “Something, General?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Nothing, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo wants nothing more than to curl his fingers into Hux’s hair, force him to the ground, straddle him, pin his wrists by his head, bite his neck and shoulder and—

“Sir,” the new stormtrooper captain says, “the spaceport is secure.”

Kylo drags a hand back through his own hair, letting out a huff of breath. “We’re moving,” he announces. “Keep the prisoners here.”

Again they march through the deserted streets, Kylo ahead, Hux at his flank. The sky is just as empty as the thoroughfares; there’s no air traffic incoming or outgoing. With the spaceport locked down, there will be no escape for Rey—

Kylo stops dead in the middle of the street, staring. There it is, blasting off right in front of him. _That ship_. That too-familiar whine of engines, that distinctive profile, that smooth way it shouldn’t be able to move but does anyway. Only a few feeble turbolaser shots follow it into the sky. The _Millennium Falcon_ hurtles away from the spaceport, up and up and up through the atmosphere, and then Kylo can’t see it anymore.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux is saying, but Kylo brushes him off. He can’t see the ship but he can feel it, can feel that Rey is still here—

—and then she isn’t. She’s gone.

“ _Finalizer_ ,” Hux is saying into his comlink. “Is the target destroyed?”

Kylo turns slowly away from the empty sky above, eyes going to Hux as he starts to realize what’s happened.

“General,” Peavey’s voice comes back hesitantly over the staticky connection. “They evaded us. They’ve jumped to hyperspace.”

Hux goes pale. “And the tracking?”

“There was no time, sir.”

“ _You_ ,” Kylo growls, seizing Hux hard by the upper arm, dragging him forward. “You let her go.”

“I—” Hux is struggling, which is more activity than he’s shown outside of bed in ages, but Kylo is too angry to care.

“ _You let her go_ ,” he screams, shaking Hux violently.

Hux grabs Kylo’s forearm, fighting to stabilize himself. “I meant for her to die!” he grits out through his teeth, and now he looks angry.

“Those were not my orders!”

“I couldn’t let her kill you!”

Of all the things Hux might have said to defend himself, Kylo didn’t expect _that_. He blinks, staring at Hux, fingers tightening on his skinny bicep. The desert wind sweeps noisily through the empty street around them. Hux is breathing hard.

“Ridiculous,” Kylo spits finally. The back of his neck is hot. “You’d sacrifice the future of the Order just to ensure _you’re_ the one who gets to kill me?”

It’s Hux’s turn to stare. Then there it is again: that flat expression Kylo hates. “Whatever you say, Supreme Leader.”

“No,” Kylo growls, grabbing Hux’s other shoulder, yanking him close enough to feel the heat of his stuttered breath. “Snoke’s not here to protect you anymore. You can’t get away with undermining me.”

Incredulous laughter bubbles up from somewhere inside Hux, and it’s even more surprising than his ludicrous excuse for letting Rey get away. “Is that what he was doing?” Hux asks. He lets go of Kylo’s forearm, fists his hands in the front of Kylo’s tunic. “Everything I did was to protect myself from _him_.”

“Don’t you want to protect yourself from _me_?” Kylo says, low and dangerous.

Hux looks at him, and this time, his eyes are clear. There’s an expression there, but Kylo doesn’t recognize it. “No,” Hux says.

Kylo doesn’t know what to do with this response. His tunic is still clutched in Hux’s hands, and Hux is gazing at him as though he’s waiting for something, and Hux’s shoulders are trembling just slightly beneath Kylo’s hands, and their faces are so close their noses are touching.

After a long moment of silence, Hux closes his eyes. “You might as well kill me,” he says.

“What?” Kylo frowns. “Stop this, General. No more of this conniving, going behind my back, trying to trick me.”

“Aren’t you tired of it?” Hux says. He sounds tired himself. “You may as well just end it. It would be so easy for you. Just end this.”

Kylo has missed something, and whatever it is is connected to everything that’s happened—here on this dustball, on the _Finalizer_ , back on Crait and in the wreck of the _Supremacy_. He yanks Hux’s shoulders forward, lunges in, bites and sucks at Hux’s lips. Hux lets out a shuddery sort of sigh, but he opens his mouth, and Kylo licks into it.

Hux’s fingers loosen, and his hands slide down Kylo’s chest and sides and slip around to the small of his back. They’re shaking, Kylo realizes as he worries his teeth at Hux’s lower lip, soothes it with his tongue.

“I failed you,” Hux whispers against Kylo’s lips. “I disobeyed. The girl got away. Just kill me.”

“Do you want to die?” Kylo asks, quiet. Somehow, it’s like the words hollow out his chest.

“No,” Hux says. He closes his eyes briefly. “But yes.”

“Stop this. You’ve been—wrong. Since Crait,” Kylo accuses him.

“You’re right,” Hux says, his voice dull. He stares at a point somewhere over Kylo’s shoulder. “I’m broken. You should kill me.”

“ _You’re_ the one who wants to kill _me_ ,” Kylo growls, impatient. “I stopped you once, but that’s no reason to stop trying.”

“You—” Hux laughs again, wetly this time. “You didn’t stop me, Ren.”

“You were about to draw your blaster. The Force showed me your intent.”

Hux shakes his head slowly, lowering his eyes. “I’ve been waiting,” he whispers. “All this time. For you to notice. But you never will.”

“You,” Kylo says. Then he stops, because suddenly everything is clear. “You could have taken the shot.” He lets go of Hux’s shoulders, lets his hands drop to his sides.

“Just get it over with,” Hux says, and he lets go too, his arms falling away from Kylo’s waist. He raises his eyes to glare at Kylo, and they’re glistening, even in the dry desert air.

Kylo swallows. “No,” he says. His voice comes out cracked. Hoarse.

Hux smiles then, half sad and half wicked. Kylo wants to kiss him again, but he’s afraid to touch him. “You always were a cruel beast, Ren,” Hux says. “Just end this.”

“No,” Kylo says, lowering his head, trying to center himself. His hair falls into his eyes, and he tosses his head back and shakes it away. “No.”

Hux is gazing at him, and he looks hungrier than Kylo has ever seen him. “ _Why?_ ” he whispers, a million expressions twitching across his face. Kylo wants to keep them all, to fill that strange hollow feeling in his chest with them.

“Because, Hux.” Kylo is suddenly self-conscious. The harsh whistle of the wind fades away beneath the rushing in his own ears. Hux is looking at him, and his eyes are clear and green and deep. Kylo takes a long breath. “Because,” he says, “I can’t kill you either.”


End file.
